Class 9 Latvian

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Class 9

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So far in this rather long and

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fairly complicated chapter on machinery,
I suggested you might want to keep in mind

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two things; one is

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those conceptual elements in the footnote

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which bring together in some kind of ensemble the idea of technology,

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relation to nature, the processes of production,

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the sustaining of daily life, social relations and mental conceptions

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and try to look at how those elements combine in this account,

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to try to give you some sort of idea of how

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machinery and large-scale industry

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is working. The other thing I've suggested was that

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you should pay attention to the section headings

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because they give you a good guide as to what Marx is about. So far we've looked

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at the general way in which capitalism found

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its unique and special technological basis

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by transforming the world of handicrafts and manufacturing into a world

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which is made up of the production of machines by machines and also

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a factory system.

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But one of the things that differentiates machinery from

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cooperation and divisions of labour as ways of generating

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relative surplus-value is that you have to
pay for a machine, it is a commodity.

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So that immediately raises the question of

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how the value incorporated in the machine

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gets incorporated in the product. And Marx uses a straight-line
depreciation model which says 'the machine

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last ten years and one-tenth of its value part is one of the product every year'

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Then out of that came a very important limitation on

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the utilization of machines, which is going to crop up periodically

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throughout the rest of 'Capital', which is the idea that the

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labour embodied in the machine

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should not be greater than the labour you saved by it,

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otherwise it doesn't make sense to actually produce the machine

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or use the machine.

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Which then also suggests that if

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there are differentiations in the value of labour-power
from one place to another then

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the machine dynamic is likely to be very different.

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Marx uses the example of the

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United States where there's a relative scarcity of labour and

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the value of labour was relatively high compared
to Britain, so that machinery that was

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invented in Britain gets utilized in the United States,

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A more contemporary version of this which
I don't think I mentioned when we were looking

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at the section, would be one of the arguments about why

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West-Germany was so technologically dynamic during the 1970s-1980s ,

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it was because of strong labour unions

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which kept the cost of labour relatively high

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and in response to that the capitalists innovated very rapidly

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with the result of that they threw a lot of
people out of work so Germany ended up with

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a high paid wage force,

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but also with a high level of structural unemployment

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at the end of this as a result of

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dynamic so we have contemporary examples

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of this sort of issue.

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Then in the third section, he asks the question:
What does this mean for labour?

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-What this means is first of all the substitution of the family wage
for the individual wage,

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which has all kinds of repercussions for

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how family-labour is organized, how the labour of women, children

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gets organized, how the gang system gets structured, how

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patriarchal systems within the working-class get deployed and reinforced

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through these mechanisms.

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The second thing that's very important in Marx' view,

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is the way in which the labourer is caught up in this machine world

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by a very peculiar term,
I've never quite understood why Marx used it,

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which is the 'moral depreciation' of machinery which

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really amounts to the accelerated obsolescence of machinery because

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new machinery is coming on line,

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which means that capitalists have an incredible incentive

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to actually get their money back out
of the machines fast as they can which means

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extending the length of working day

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keeping the machinery employed 24 hours a day and the like.

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And the final point which Marx makes here is that machinery, in so far as

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the pace of the work is now controlled by machine technology,

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machinery becomes a major weapon

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for increasing the intensity of labour

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because the intensity is no longer under
the control of the labourer but is under the control

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of those people who are regulating the machine.

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This brings him

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in the next chapter which we're looking at now,

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to the question of the factory system.

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He summarizes a little bit

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the argument of the last three sections and then

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points out two ways in which you can think
of the factory system as given by

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Dr. Ure, who was one of the chief ideologists

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of capitalism in the early 19th century,

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in which there is this idea that there's a combined cooperation of many workers

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and Marx contrasts that with the other interpretation which Marx is going

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to follow, which is "…'a vast automaton,
composed of various mechanical and intellectual organs,

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acting in uninterrupted concert for the production of a common object,
all of them being subordinate

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to a self-regulated moving force'."

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In what follows then Marx is going to largely take that line of argument

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and point out that first of,

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the skill that the labourer once had as their
own skill is now incorporated in the machine.

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So you get something called deskilling,
there's been a big debate in the literature, Harry Braverman

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among others, about

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to the degree to which deskilling continues to be

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a significant aspect of how capitalist economies work. Marx is saying

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the skill goes inside the machine therefore the labourer is deprived

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of control over that skill.

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And this of course disrupts

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the typical divisions of labour that occurred under the manufacturing and

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manufacturing period

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and turns division of labour into,

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as he says: "The essential division is that between workers who
are actually employed on the machines…

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…and those who merely attend them" That is, feed them with raw materials etc.

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So that the deskilling really completely reorganizes

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social relations within labour itself

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except, as he says at the bottom of page 545:

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There "is a superior class of workers, in part scientifically
educated, in part trained in a handicraft;

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they stand outside the realm of the factory workers,

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and are added to them only to make up an aggregate."

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That is, for that group there is a certain

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reskilling going on, which is about being the engineers, the assembly

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lines and all the rest of it.

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The impact on the labourer then is to transform

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the labourer from a lifetime of being involved
with a particular skill, handling the same

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tool, into a lifetime of being attached to the same machine.

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And at the same time the labourer can't escape that, they're brought into it

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Which leads on page 548,

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I think what is the key

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social critique which he is going to introduce in this chapter, when he says

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"In handicrafts and manufacture, the worker makes use of a
tool; in the factory, the machine makes use of him. "

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"In the factory we have a lifeless mechanism which is independent of the workers,

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who are incorporated into it as its living appendages."

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The workers become appendages of the machines.

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and he this then goes on

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to talk about what the implications of that are, when he says:

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“Factory work exhausts the nervous system to the uttermost;

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at the same time, it does away with the many-sided play of the muscles, and confiscates

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every atom of freedom, both in bodily and in intellectual activity."

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The kind of work you're now doing is deprived of any content,

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furthermore as you go down the page,
he talks about another very important aspect:

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"The separation of the intellectual faculties of
the production process from manual labour,

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and the transformation of those faculties" i.e. the intellectual faculties

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"into powers exercised by capital over labour,"

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he says, 'we've seen elements of this going on before
but here we see it finally completed by large-scale industry.

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He says: "The special skill of each individual machine-operator,

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who has now been deprived of all significance, vanishes as an infinitesimal quantity

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in the face of the science,”

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-read mental conceptions—

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"the gigantic natural forces, and the mass of social labour embodied in the system of machinery,

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and the massive social everybody in the system and machinery which

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which, together with those three forces, constitutes the power of the 'master'."

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That is, capital has taken over skill, incorporated that in the machine,

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has taken over intellectual capacities

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and utilized those to his own advantages, has taken over science

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and using that to its own advantage, these all become,

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powers, appropriated powers by which capital can dominate labour.

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And to that is then added a disciplinary apparatus

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and right at the end Marx makes a lot of

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the systems of fines etc. There's a long footnote on page 550-551,

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footnote 9

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which is worth reading, about the way in which capitalists actually organize

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the disciplinary apparatus both in the work process and outside the work process

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to make absolutely sure that the worker

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is both disciplined but then also uses that disciplinary apparatus to try to

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actually regain some of the value that they have in wage labour.

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That I,s if you find people who're being late
and then you have somebody who actually put the clock

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wrong so everybody's late, then actually you fine them
so they no longer get the wages that are really

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due to them.

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And this is one of the tactics and tricks that capitalists play with that sort of thing.

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He ends favorably quoting Fourier, for a change,

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and Fouriers description of factories as really just mitigated jails.

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This all leads to, immediately into the next section which is

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if this is what's going on to the labourer, then you would expect some response.

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And response we're going to look at in section 5.

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The Luddite response, which is

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a political movement which was about machine breaking, destroyed the machines,

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and there are good reasons for doing that, Marx outlines some of these,

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that of course,

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the machinery is displacing wage labour so that people are thrown out of jobs.

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They become as he says

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on 537: "The worker becomes unsaleable, like paper money thrown out of currency by legal enactment."

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The disciplinary apparatus inside of of the factory is

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really troublesome because of the way in which machinery gets used.

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So we get a description here then of the luddite movement and furthermore

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on 562-563,

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he outlines one other element in the story

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when he says: "machinery does not just act as a superior competitor to the
worker, always on the point of making him superfluous.

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It is a power inimical to him,

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and capital proclaims this fact loudly and deliberately, as well as making use of it.

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It is the most powerful weapon for suppressing strikes, those periodic revolts
of the working class against the autocracy of capital."

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He then says on top of 563: "It would be possible to write a whole history
of the inventions made since 1830

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for the sole purpose of providing capital with weapons against working- class revolt."

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So machinery is actually constructed in the minds of capital as a weapon of class struggle.

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workers are getting uppity, introduce machines that disciplines them, throws them out of work,

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disrupts them, generates insecurity, all of those kinds of things.

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So that, technological change

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is not simply about gaining surplus-value from

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the relative surplus-value that comes from that, it's also about

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disciplining the workers.

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And actually there is

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plenty of evidence, particularly in the 19th century that this was a conscious idea,

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a machine manufacturer

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in Paris in the 1860s, when asked the question:

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What are the things that drive you to do innovate? He said three things:

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-increasing efficiency

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-increasing output

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and increasing discipline of the labour force"

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And of those three the third was probably the most important for him.

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So that this question of machinery as a weapon in class struggle becomes

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actually absolutely central.

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In a sense, the struggle of the worker against the machine

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and the fight against the machine becomes understandable, but there's

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an interesting wrinkle, and so I want to go back here

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to when Marx first introduces the Luddite movement

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at the bottom of p.554, because there's an interesting question that this poses.

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Having introduced the Luddite movement,

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Marx makes the following comment:

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"It took both time and experience before the workers learnt to distinguish between machinery

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and its employment by capital,

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and therefore to transfer their attacks from the

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material instruments of production to the form of society which utilizes those instruments."

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There's an interesting question here,

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and it's important to think how we might read this:

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does this imply that the machinery is itself neutral?

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and that

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what really matters is the social relations behind the use of the machine?

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and there is evidence constructed by

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many social and economic historians of this period in Britain and of the Luddite movement,

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that indeed the Luddites started off by breaking almost any machine they found,

0:15:49.170,0:15:54.570
to going after and targeting specific capitalists
who were using them in a particularly obnoxious

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and brutal way.

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So there is considerable evidence that Marx is correct in saying

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that workers at that time learned to distinguish between

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all the machines being deployed and specific

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horrendous utilization of those machines by specific capitalists, and the

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targeting largely over time converged

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on those specific capitalists who were using it in the most obnoxious fashion.

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but then think about this for a moment and worry
a little bit about what this might in general imply.

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When Lenin came in, and the Bolshevik revolution occurred,

0:16:36.510,0:16:40.420
Lenin basically said well the Fordist factory is fine,

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there's nothing wrong with the Fordist factory,

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mass production is fine, we need it,

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because we need to produce the arms with which we're going
to defend ourselves and all the rest of it,

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but all that really matters is that the social relations change.

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So in a sense, Lenin was arguing that the machines were socially neutral,

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and there is in fact a long history within marxism for example, as treating

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machines as good things,

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all that you have to do is get the social relations
behind them right and everything is fine,

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this does not really converge very well with the argument
that I was making about how to think about

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that footnote.

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That footnote would imply that in exactly the
same way that capitalism had to find a technological basis for itself,

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so indeed, socialism, communism would have to find a new technological basis for itself

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which would in fact be radically different

0:17:44.410,0:17:48.530
from that derived under capitalism, as different from that

0:17:48.530,0:17:55.460
which Marx is here describing as this is from the manufacturing era.

0:17:55.460,0:17:57.160
In other words,

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the long-run concern would be not to treat the technology as neutral

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but to treat it as embodying

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in many respects certain ideas about the elation to nature,
certain mental conceptions,

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certain social relations and all the rest of it.

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And that a transformation of all of those elements would require

0:18:19.049,0:18:26.760
a radical change in the trajectory of technological development.

0:18:26.760,0:18:31.580
But that was certainly not what Lenin did.

0:18:31.580,0:18:36.150
And when Lenin looked to Fordism and praised the Fordist system

0:18:36.150,0:18:42.540
as being a great invention which the soviets would have to emulate,

0:18:42.540,0:18:46.999
you could argue that he's going the wrong way unless,

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unless you took the view

0:18:50.860,0:18:55.610
which Marx does, that you cannot a change society
without utilizing all of the elements that

0:18:55.610,0:19:01.660
are already there and exactly the same way that capitalists had to use

0:19:01.660,0:19:05.100
the technologies of the manufacturing period.

0:19:05.100,0:19:09.790
so there's absolutely no a way that in the condition
of revolution such as 1917 in

0:19:09.790,0:19:14.350
the Soviet Union, the condition of that sort,

0:19:14.350,0:19:20.640
you had no option except to utilize capitalist technologies, particularly

0:19:20.640,0:19:24.930
since capitalism is breathing down your neck and trying to invade you with all kinds of

0:19:24.930,0:19:30.070
sophisticated arms and technologies and all the rest of it. You have no option.

0:19:30.070,0:19:33.130
But that's a very different way of looking at it

0:19:33.130,0:19:38.500
than looking at that as a long-term perspective,

0:19:38.500,0:19:41.679
and there are certain ways in which

0:19:41.679,0:19:45.710
a marxist reading of this argument which turns

0:19:45.710,0:19:48.990
technology into something neutral,

0:19:48.990,0:19:51.690
actually can then lead you into

0:19:51.690,0:19:56.700
many of the problems of actually existing socialism or communism,

0:19:56.700,0:20:01.350
as emerged in the 1970-80-90s

0:20:01.350,0:20:03.270
labour process is that in many ways

0:20:03.270,0:20:07.400
were indistinguishable from what you would find in Detroit,

0:20:07.400,0:20:11.980
conditions of labour and repression (!) actually that were not much different than

0:20:11.980,0:20:13.670
you would find in Detroit.

0:20:13.670,0:20:20.680
So this question, I think, about how to read this passage becomes very important.

0:20:20.680,0:20:24.100
I would read it against the background of those footnotes,

0:20:24.100,0:20:27.710
but there's a lot of marxist reading of this
which would rather take on a rather Promethean view

0:20:27.710,0:20:35.730
on technology and a Promethean view of all of this and say 'this is the basis,

0:20:35.730,0:20:39.290
this technology is the basis, all we have to do is to make it super efficient

0:20:39.290,0:20:43.330
and make sure the social relations behind it are adequate

0:20:43.330,0:20:48.080
to justify this technology,

0:20:48.080,0:20:51.650
the big problem is that the social relations that are necessary to manage

0:20:51.650,0:20:57.380
these kinds of technological systems are hierarchical systems,

0:20:57.380,0:21:04.140
are command and control systems, which are not necessarily democratic systems.

0:21:04.140,0:21:12.940
So these are the sorts of issues that this little phrase here actually sets up.

0:21:12.940,0:21:18.640
Which is carried over actually into the next section,

0:21:18.640,0:21:28.950
section six, on the compensation theory, starts on p.565.

0:21:28.950,0:21:37.320
Now, the bourgeois political economists maintained that
the development of machinery was neutral,

0:21:37.320,0:21:39.860
again there's this neutrality assumption,

0:21:39.860,0:21:44.580
was neutral in relationship to total aggregate labour employment.

0:21:44.580,0:21:48.930
They accepted there were disruptions, moving from here to there and everywhere else,

0:21:48.930,0:21:53.600
but in aggregate, the compensation theory said, for every

0:21:53.600,0:22:01.860
job you lose -because machines are employed- you're going to get a job back somewhere else.

0:22:01.860,0:22:11.250
And this compensation was understood as being 1: 1 in aggregate,

0:22:11.250,0:22:16.220
and as Marx points out, you find all kinds of people

0:22:16.220,0:22:23.470
peddling this idea, “James Mill, MacCulloch, Torrens, Senior and John Stuart Mill”, but you will notice in the footnote

0:22:23.470,0:22:29.260
he says that "Ricardo originally shared this view, but afterwards expressly disclaimed it,

0:22:29.260,0:22:35.250
with the scientific impartiality and love of truth characteristic of him.”

0:22:35.250,0:22:39.640
Very rare that you find Marx saying nice things about bourgeois economists, but

0:22:39.640,0:22:42.220
he was, as I've mentioned,

0:22:42.220,0:22:47.420
seriously admiring of Ricardo and also seriously admiring of Adam Smith. but very different

0:22:47.420,0:22:55.190
from Nassau Senior and all of the crass apologists and so on.

0:22:56.680,0:23:00.790
Now what Marx does of course is to immediately

0:23:00.790,0:23:04.130
dismiss this whole line of argument,

0:23:04.130,0:23:07.440
and he points out that actually

0:23:07.440,0:23:11.270
there's a very peculiar way in which they're making the argument which is that

0:23:11.270,0:23:17.020
by throwing people out of work you save
on the subsistence they otherwise would have consumed.

0:23:17.020,0:23:23.270
So there's a lot more subsistence available in society, and all kinds of

0:23:23.270,0:23:26.590
crazy ways in which they argued this neutrality thing, and

0:23:26.590,0:23:33.460
he goes on and says on p.567: "the real facts…are these:

0:23:34.580,0:23:40.560
the workers, when driven out of the workshop by the machinery,
are thrown onto the labour-market.

0:23:40.560,0:23:47.090
Their presence in the labour-market increases the number of labour-powers which are at the disposal of capitalist exploitation.”

0:23:47.090,0:23:48.460
Further down,

0:23:48.460,0:23:51.830
because "I'm going to deal with this later in great depth" and he does…

0:23:51.830,0:23:55.090
"workers who have been thrown out of work in a given branch of industry

0:23:55.090,0:23:57.600
can no doubt look for employment in another branch.

0:23:57.600,0:24:01.710
If they find it, and thus renew the bond between them and the
means of subsistence, this takes place only through the agency of

0:24:01.710,0:24:07.690
a new, additional capital which is seeking investment, which is seeking investment

0:24:07.690,0:24:11.700
and in no way through the agency of the capital that was already functioning previously

0:24:11.700,0:24:14.530
and was then converted into machinery."

0:24:14.530,0:24:16.940
So the conversion into machinery has nothing to do with it,

0:24:16.940,0:24:19.080
it's just that added capital is coming in

0:24:19.080,0:24:22.140
and mopping up the surplus labour

0:24:22.140,0:24:24.080
then he goes on to say

0:24:24.080,0:24:27.710
"And even if they do find employment, what a miserable prospect they face!

0:24:27.710,0:24:31.450
Crippled as they are by the division of labour, these poor devils are worth so little outside

0:24:31.450,0:24:35.490
their old trade that they cannot find admission into any industries except a few inferior

0:24:35.490,0:24:39.810
and therefore over-supplied and under-paid branches.

0:24:39.810,0:24:45.220
As soon as machinery has set free a part of the workers employed in a given branch of industry,

0:24:45.220,0:24:46.280
the reserve men

0:24:46.280,0:24:51.990
are also diverted into new channels of employment, and become absorbed in other branches;

0:24:51.990,0:24:58.310
meanwhile the original victims, during the period of transition,
for the most part starve and perish.

0:24:58.310,0:25:00.960
It is an undoubted fact

0:25:00.960,0:25:07.600
that machinery is not as such responsible for 'setting free' the worker
from the means of subsistence.

0:25:07.600,0:25:10.990
It cheapens and increases production in the branch it seizes on, and

0:25:10.990,0:25:17.429
at first leaves unaltered the quantity of the means of subsistence produced in other branches.

0:25:17.429,0:25:22.070
Hence, after the introduction of machinery, society possesses as much
of the necessaries of life as before,

0:25:22.070,0:25:25.720
if not more, for the workers who have been displaced,

0:25:25.720,0:25:30.630
not to mention the enormous share of the annual product wasted by non-workers.

0:25:30.630,0:25:34.040
And this is the point relied on by our economic apologists!

0:25:34.040,0:25:38.740
The contradictions and antagonisms inseparable from the capitalist application of machinery

0:25:38.740,0:25:46.650
do not exist, they say, because they do not arise out of machinery as such,
but out of its capitalist application!

0:25:46.650,0:25:51.090
Therefore, since machinery in itself shortens the hours of labour,

0:25:51.090,0:25:56.100
but when employed by capital it lengthens them; since in itself it lightens labour, but when employed by

0:25:56.100,0:25:59.850
capital it heightens its intensity;

0:25:59.850,0:26:03.400
since in itself it is a victory of man over the forces of nature but

0:26:03.400,0:26:07.230
in the hands of capital it makes man the slave of those forces;

0:26:07.230,0:26:09.920
since in itself it increases the wealth of the producers,

0:26:09.920,0:26:13.080
but in the hands of capital it makes them into paupers,

0:26:13.080,0:26:18.800
the bourgeois economist simply states that the contemplation of
machinery in itself demonstrates with exactitude

0:26:18.800,0:26:23.840
that all these evident contradictions are a mere semblance, present in everyday reality…

0:26:23.840,0:26:26.850
… Thus he manages to avoid racking his brains any more,

0:26:26.850,0:26:31.419
and in addition implies that his opponent is guilty of the stupidity of contending,

0:26:31.419,0:26:37.340
not against the capitalist application of machinery, but against machinery itself."

0:26:37.340,0:26:39.899
Again we're getting this

0:26:39.899,0:26:45.190
whole discussion and debate over whether it's machinery or
the capitalist application of machinery

0:26:45.190,0:26:47.240
that is the problem,

0:26:47.240,0:26:50.630
and here he's using

0:26:50.630,0:26:56.780
the bourgeois defense of the deployment of machinery as being neutral

0:26:56.780,0:27:03.500
in order to actually highlight 'we should be thinking about the social relations',

0:27:03.500,0:27:14.550
But does this mean that indeed the machinery is neutral in itself?

0:27:14.550,0:27:17.260
This is again, as you can see where one of the

0:27:17.260,0:27:27.480
problem starts to rise and we'll get to discuss that a bit later.

0:27:27.480,0:27:29.540
In other words

0:27:29.540,0:27:35.240
machinery when you look at the last two sections,
has been very much about managing the labour surplus,

0:27:35.240,0:27:41.500
and managing the supply of labour.

0:27:41.500,0:27:45.700
He then goes on, on p.570 to raise the issue

0:27:45.700,0:27:55.409
and say, it doesn't automatically mean that the labour surplus remains unemployed.

0:27:55.409,0:27:59.460
In fact, the generating of a labour surplus by throwing people out of work

0:27:59.460,0:28:02.250
creates all kinds of possibilities for new capital investment

0:28:02.250,0:28:06.080
to come in and mop up that labour surplus. So on 570

0:28:06.080,0:28:13.400
he's starts to talk about the way in which

0:28:13.400,0:28:16.070
having people thrown out of work

0:28:16.070,0:28:20.750
"…may… bring about an increase in employment in other industries."

0:28:20.750,0:28:23.730
but he says 'this has nothing to do with

0:28:23.730,0:28:28.750
any kind of theory of compensation; it has to do with whether

0:28:28.750,0:28:32.159
there's investment capital out there looking for surplus labour

0:28:32.159,0:28:39.679
and if it is you can get a massive increase of employment

0:28:39.679,0:28:43.010
simply because capitalism is itself being very dynamic

0:28:43.010,0:28:51.320
and one of the ways in which it can be dynamic is because an increase

0:28:51.320,0:28:55.400
in technology in one sector can put tremendous
demands on the flow of raw materials from

0:28:55.400,0:28:56.510
elsewhere.

0:28:56.510,0:28:59.470
Towards the bottom of p.570 he says

0:28:59.470,0:29:03.940
"the production of raw material must be quadrupled"

0:29:03.940,0:29:09.010
you got a machine now which is producing

0:29:09.010,0:29:12.720
four times as much cloth as before
then you need for four times as much of the

0:29:12.720,0:29:17.600
raw materials, that means a lot of
employment in those kinds of segments.

0:29:17.600,0:29:21.000
He then says, on p.570

0:29:21.000,0:29:27.480
at the bottom: "How far employment is thereby found for an increased number of workers

0:29:27.480,0:29:28.460
depends, given the length of the working day and the intensity of

0:29:28.460,0:29:34.340
labour, on the composition of the capital employed."

0:29:34.340,0:29:41.070
The composition of capital is the ratio of constant to variable capital,

0:29:41.070,0:29:45.490
a very important concept which Marx is going to use throughout Capital

0:29:45.490,0:29:51.360
and he's introducing it here for the first time.

0:29:51.360,0:29:56.350
It's really a measure of labour intensity, of capital intensity if you like

0:29:56.350,0:29:59.700
that capital-intensive industries are going to demand less labour,

0:29:59.700,0:30:02.800
labour intensive industries are going to do demand more labour.

0:30:02.800,0:30:08.550
So it's the intensity of the capital : labour ratio which is crucial

0:30:08.550,0:30:15.670
of whether actually people do get an increase in employment.

0:30:15.670,0:30:20.230
So there's a possible increase of proletariat.

0:30:20.230,0:30:23.600
Bottom of page 572 he introduces

0:30:23.600,0:30:28.760
another problem which is by and large ignored in Volume 1 of Capital,
and I'm

0:30:28.760,0:30:31.240
going to emphasize it because it's an important problem,

0:30:31.240,0:30:33.820
which is not going to be analyzed elsewhere. but

0:30:33.820,0:30:36.510
typical Marx, he introduces it

0:30:36.510,0:30:40.520
and says 'you don't need to think about it,

0:30:40.520,0:30:43.700
actually is going to be the topic of Volumes II and III,

0:30:43.700,0:30:45.930
but here it comes in.

0:30:45.930,0:30:49.960
You've not only to think about

0:30:49.960,0:30:53.899
how the labour surplus is gonna be managed, so you've always got a labour supply,

0:30:53.899,0:30:59.340
you've also got to think about where on Earth are you going to dispose

0:30:59.340,0:31:02.649
of the commodity surplus which you produce,

0:31:02.649,0:31:06.500
where is the market for surplus-value going to go?

0:31:06.500,0:31:08.130
Where is that market?

0:31:08.130,0:31:13.690
Who's going to consume all this excess of production? Let's suppose

0:31:13.690,0:31:18.090
you introduced new machinery and you got so
much more cloth coming and so many more shirts

0:31:18.090,0:31:19.759
and so on;

0:31:19.759,0:31:21.179
It's quadrupled,

0:31:21.179,0:31:23.870
who's going to buy it all?

0:31:23.870,0:31:27.020
Clearly the workers are not really in a position to buy it

0:31:27.020,0:31:30.990
because they're being exploited like crazy,

0:31:30.990,0:31:32.570
so who's going to buy it?

0:31:32.570,0:31:40.520
So he introduces this issue very briefly at the bottom of 572,

0:31:40.520,0:31:47.380
he says: " The immediate result of machinery is to augment surplus-value
and the mass of products

0:31:47.380,0:31:50.510
in which surplus-value is embodied.

0:31:50.510,0:31:55.510
It also increases the quantity of substances for the capitalists and
their dependants to consume, and therefore the size of these

0:31:55.510,0:31:59.150
social strata themselves."

0:31:59.150,0:32:01.230
Increase in capitalist class,

0:32:01.230,0:32:03.450
increasing capitalist consumption,

0:32:03.450,0:32:09.520
"Their growing wealth, and the relatively diminished number of workers required to produce the means of subsistence,

0:32:09.520,0:32:14.870
begets both new luxury requirements and the means of satisfying them.

0:32:14.870,0:32:18.900
A larger portion of the social product is converted into surplus product,

0:32:18.900,0:32:22.650
and a larger portion of the surplus product is reproduced and consumed in a multitude of refined shapes.

0:32:22.650,0:32:29.650
of refund checks in other words the production of luxuries increases.
In other words, the production of luxuries increases."

0:32:30.650,0:32:37.160
Then he introduces foreign trade and relations to the world market.

0:32:37.160,0:32:46.620
Here too you have a way of engaging with where the surplus is going to go,

0:32:46.620,0:32:48.720
which of course increases the demand

0:32:48.720,0:32:55.010
for labour in the transport industry and alike. So foreign trade,

0:32:55.010,0:33:02.500
spatial relations, geographical expansion, gets put on the agenda.

0:33:02.500,0:33:03.480
Next passage,

0:33:03.480,0:33:06.110
you could also put some of the surplus

0:33:06.110,0:33:13.110
into long-term capital projects which don't produce anything for many, many years.

0:33:13.810,0:33:17.050
He says: "an extension of work that can only bear fruit in the distant future,

0:33:17.050,0:33:20.340
such as the construction of canals, docks, tunnels, bridges and so on."

0:33:20.340,0:33:22.210
He then talks about a whole

0:33:22.210,0:33:24.159
series of industries which are engaged

0:33:24.159,0:33:29.760
in that sort of thing, "gas-works, telegraphy, photography, steam navigation and railways."

0:33:29.760,0:33:35.120
So there's a lot of what I've called both temporal and spatial displacement

0:33:35.120,0:33:41.690
of the consumption of the surplus going on here.

0:33:41.690,0:33:52.100
Finally on p.574 he introduces the idea of services.

0:33:52.100,0:33:57.429
And on p.574 he also introduces ideas about

0:33:57.429,0:34:03.770
a servant class, "it is possible to reproduce the ancient domestic slaves,
on a constantly extending scale,

0:34:03.770,0:34:07.640
under the name of a servant class, including men-servants, women-servants,…

0:34:07.640,0:34:13.019
and then of course there are the "'ideological' groups, such as members of the government, priests,
lawyers, soldiers, etc.;

0:34:13.019,0:34:19.129
then all the people exclusively occupied in consuming the labour of others in the form of ground rent, interest, etc. ;

0:34:19.129,0:34:22.209
"paupers, vagabonds and criminals" have something to do with it too.

0:34:22.209,0:34:27.669
But notice something here,

0:34:27.669,0:34:32.289
thing at the bottom of that page, how large the servant class is!

0:34:32.289,0:34:35.639
It's huge!

0:34:35.639,0:34:42.639
Now we sometimes say to ourselves, oh well recently capitalism has gone into services,

0:34:43.169,0:34:48.769
of course, the difference here was the servant class was in the house,

0:34:48.769,0:34:54.539
we now live in a world where services are commidified, you buy them in the market.

0:34:56.309,0:35:04.499
the famous lines that were going on in the 1930s, 'you can't get good nannies and personnel anymore'

0:35:04.499,0:35:08.880
'can't get good servants anymore', so you have to take it outside. You go and get your

0:35:08.880,0:35:14.559
you washings done, you get your pressings down outside, all the services are taken outside.

0:35:14.559,0:35:22.599
But the point here is the structure of class relations, look at that servant class.

0:35:22.599,0:35:25.579
It's huge!

0:35:25.579,0:35:29.139
Marx does not have much to say about it, he doesn't have much to say about any of these

0:35:29.139,0:35:31.999
issues here at all.

0:35:31.999,0:35:36.959
But what that servant class was about and how it was working and what its conditions of labour were

0:35:36.959,0:35:40.509
is actually a very important topic which I think is only now being beginning

0:35:40.509,0:35:47.389
to be unraveled by social and economic historians.

0:35:47.389,0:35:49.609
But again,

0:35:49.609,0:35:55.669
the point here is that the implications of this system, this machine system

0:35:55.669,0:35:59.469
are huge both for the management of the labour surplus

0:35:59.469,0:36:06.299
but also the management of the disposal of the surplus into world markets.

0:36:06.299,0:36:09.099
and this is an issue, like I say, that he doesn't deal with,

0:36:09.099,0:36:14.059
throughout Volume 1 of capital, but it becomes important elsewhere. this is the one part where

0:36:14.059,0:36:20.399
he does explicitly mention it as an issue.

0:36:20.399,0:36:24.920
Section seven, long section about,

0:36:24.920,0:36:33.669
as its title says "Repulsion and attraction of workers through the development of machine production. Crises in the cotton industry”

0:36:33.669,0:36:38.929
Even bourgeois political-economists at the time realized that there were transitional

0:36:38.929,0:36:43.069
problems, when people were thrown out of work here they had to find work there,

0:36:43.069,0:36:45.109
and these transitional problems

0:36:45.109,0:36:49.170
meant that there were certain kinds of

0:36:49.170,0:36:53.189
cyclical movements in industries.

0:36:53.189,0:37:00.089
I'm not going to go through this section in any great detail because it really is

0:37:00.089,0:37:05.079
about the inflow and outflow of people mainly in the cotton industry,

0:37:05.079,0:37:10.099
but there are a couple of interesting points.

0:37:10.099,0:37:19.049
The first is on page 579:

0:37:19.049,0:37:25.519
where he talks about "as soon as the factory system has attained
a reasonable space to exist in,

0:37:25.519,0:37:28.140
and reached a definite degree of maturity,

0:37:28.140,0:37:33.389
and in particular as soon as the technical basis peculiar to it, machinery, is itself
produced by machinery…"

0:37:33.389,0:37:34.359
then he goes on:

0:37:34.359,0:37:38.969
"in short, as soon as the general conditions of production appropriate
to large-scale industry have been established,

0:37:38.969,0:37:41.879
this mode of production acquires an elasticity,

0:37:41.879,0:37:45.290
a capacity for sudden extension by leaps and bounds,

0:37:45.290,0:37:49.750
which comes up against no barriers but those presented by the availability of raw materials

0:37:49.750,0:37:53.809
and the extent of sales outlets."

0:37:53.809,0:38:05.930
Relations to nature, raw materials, sales outlets, the consumer economy.

0:38:05.930,0:38:09.480
Out of this comes also, right at the bottom of the page:

0:38:09.480,0:38:13.389
“A new and international division of labour springs up,

0:38:13.389,0:38:16.659
one suited to the requirements of the main industrial countries,

0:38:16.659,0:38:20.789
and it converts one part of the globe into a chiefly agricultural field of production

0:38:20.789,0:38:22.359
for supplying the other part,

0:38:22.359,0:38:25.529
which remains a pre-eminently industrial field."

0:38:25.529,0:38:28.929
Which of course is what the British were doing to India,

0:38:28.929,0:38:31.779
India was providing the raw materials

0:38:31.779,0:38:35.939
and at the same time India was the market for British goods.

0:38:35.939,0:38:40.769
So the whole imperialist project was to turn in India into a field

0:38:40.769,0:38:44.690
for the production of raw materials for British industry

0:38:44.690,0:38:51.970
and then use India as a sink for British products.

0:38:51.970,0:38:55.149
This leads into what he says,

0:38:55.149,0:38:59.509
in a way a temporal business cycle,

0:38:59.509,0:39:05.950
that there are rapid fluctuations and much more volatility
gets introduced into the system.

0:39:05.950,0:39:10.489
It's kind of funny given the current state
of volatility in global markets to find Marx

0:39:10.489,0:39:15.809
actually emphasizing that volatility is very much what capitalism is always about,

0:39:15.809,0:39:22.229
expands by leaps and bounds and then goes crash,
and then turned back and expands again.

0:39:22.229,0:39:23.519
As he says:

0:39:23.519,0:39:28.099
"The factory system's tremendous capacity for expanding with

0:39:28.099,0:39:33.660
sudden immense leaps, and its dependence on the world market,
necessarily give rise to the following cycle:

0:39:33.660,0:39:36.549
feverish production, a consequent glut on the market,

0:39:36.549,0:39:40.709
then a contraction of the market, which causes production to be crippled.

0:39:40.709,0:39:48.579
The life of industry becomes a series of periods of moderate activity, prosperity,
over-production, crisis and stagnation."

0:39:48.579,0:39:50.829
Marx is here talking about

0:39:50.829,0:39:55.640
what he sees as the production of the business cycle.

0:39:55.640,0:39:58.939
And some of these are long term.

0:39:58.939,0:40:03.389
These business cycles have implications for labour which is what he's talking about

0:40:03.389,0:40:09.789
in the cotton industry for the next 15 pages.

0:40:09.789,0:40:15.740
And I think that this is a very important aspect of the dynamic of

0:40:15.740,0:40:23.039
machinery, which differentiates the industrial system from
the system that preceded it,

0:40:24.539,0:40:32.549
the handicrafts and manufacturing system could could not move as quickly,
could not throw people out of work,

0:40:32.549,0:40:36.159
there was too much monopoly power in the labour sector

0:40:36.159,0:40:40.019
to do that, but here you can just throw people out of work, bring them back in,

0:40:40.019,0:40:44.459
they're all machine minders anyway, you don't care about their skills too much,
just throw them

0:40:44.459,0:40:47.519
out and bring them back in, so that's the way in which

0:40:47.519,0:40:55.219
a rather callous industrial system
works.

0:40:55.219,0:40:57.559
Section Eight,

0:40:57.559,0:41:01.890
he talks about 'the revolutionary impact of large-scale industry on manufacture,

0:41:01.890,0:41:05.799
handicrafts and domestic industry'.

0:41:05.799,0:41:09.529
I'm not going to go through this in too much detail,

0:41:09.529,0:41:14.880
because the main story is to set up the factory system

0:41:14.880,0:41:19.719
as against these other manufacturing systems.

0:41:19.719,0:41:23.609
Clearly in his period of time

0:41:23.609,0:41:27.049
the manufacturing system was still present,

0:41:27.049,0:41:31.529
the handicraft system was still present, the domestic system of manufacturers
was still present.

0:41:31.529,0:41:36.109
And in fact, in some respects they have become

0:41:36.109,0:41:40.949
even more sophisticated than in the period when they were dominant,

0:41:40.949,0:41:45.729
partly because that was the only way in which they could maintain

0:41:45.729,0:41:47.930
themselves and maintain their system

0:41:47.930,0:41:53.179
in relationship to this overpowering factory system

0:41:53.179,0:41:55.649
that was coming into being.

0:41:56.739,0:42:01.079
On page 590,

0:42:01.079,0:42:05.739
he makes I think some very interesting remarks about this,

0:42:05.739,0:42:09.729
"The principle of machine production, namely the division of the production process

0:42:09.729,0:42:13.620
into its constituent phases, and the solution of the problems arising from this

0:42:13.620,0:42:16.590
by the application of mechanics, chemistry

0:42:16.590,0:42:22.309
and the whole range of the natural sciences, now plays the determining role everywhere."

0:42:22.309,0:42:26.249
It even gets applied in the modern 'domestic industry'.

0:42:26.249,0:42:30.869
and he then goes on to say: "This modern 'domestic industry' has nothing

0:42:30.869,0:42:35.429
except the name in common with old-fashioned domestic industry,

0:42:35.429,0:42:39.709
the existence of which presupposes independent urban handicrafts,

0:42:39.709,0:42:40.979
independent peasant farming

0:42:40.979,0:42:44.799
and, above all, a dwelling-house for the worker and his family.

0:42:44.799,0:42:49.339
That kind of industry has now been converted into an external department of the factory,

0:42:49.339,0:42:53.069
the manufacturing workshop, or the warehouse.

0:42:53.069,0:42:57.589
Besides the factory worker, the workers engaged in manufacture, and the handicraftsmen,

0:42:57.589,0:43:01.569
whom it concentrates in large masses at one spot, and directly commands,

0:43:01.569,0:43:06.190
capital also sets another army in motion, by means of invisible threads.:

0:43:06.190,0:43:10.969
the outworkers in the domestic industries…"

0:43:10.969,0:43:15.669
The organization of many separate domestic industries

0:43:15.669,0:43:22.159
into a system of production under the command of capital

0:43:22.159,0:43:29.660
became a very important aspect of industrial organization in the 19th century.

0:43:29.660,0:43:37.009
If you look for example at what happened in industry in Paris during the Second Empire,

0:43:37.009,0:43:41.039
you don't see an increase of factory production,

0:43:41.039,0:43:47.239
factory production actually goes way out, either to the suburbs,

0:43:47.239,0:43:54.019
or to places like Saint-Étienne, Lille, Mulhouse and the like.

0:43:54.019,0:43:57.579
But industrial production inside of Paris proliferated

0:43:57.579,0:44:00.209
immensely during the Second Empire, and it proliferated

0:44:00.209,0:44:03.509
by exactly this mechanism he's talking about here:

0:44:03.509,0:44:07.099
the organization of domestic industry into

0:44:07.099,0:44:12.499
a very sophisticated system of capitalist production under command

0:44:12.499,0:44:18.039
of merchant-capitalists who were orchestrating what was happening.

0:44:18.039,0:44:23.050
My favorite example of this would be the production of

0:44:23.050,0:44:27.779
artificial flowers, which was one of the big industries of Paris at the time.

0:44:27.779,0:44:32.019
In the 1840s you'd find workshops that were just specializing on one kind of flower,

0:44:32.019,0:44:37.709
by the time you get to 1850s-60s you'd find workshops that were specializing
on one kind of stamen

0:44:37.709,0:44:41.920
or workshops that were specializing on one kind of petal or something like that.

0:44:41.920,0:44:44.480
And they're all being put together and assembled in

0:44:44.480,0:44:46.599
a very integrated system,

0:44:46.599,0:44:49.869
it's a very intricate sort of putting-out system.

0:44:49.869,0:44:54.579
If you want a very good description of it, of this contrast -by the way-

0:44:54.579,0:44:57.919
of this industrial system and this domestic system,

0:44:57.919,0:45:00.729
you read Zola's 'L'Assommoir',

0:45:00.729,0:45:02.620
where in fact what you'll find there,

0:45:02.620,0:45:07.759
there's a description of a mechanical monster factory

0:45:07.759,0:45:12.170
which is now making bolts, it's machines making machines, as it were,

0:45:12.170,0:45:15.429
at the same time as there's an intricate description

0:45:15.429,0:45:19.969
of this couple in its workshop,

0:45:19.969,0:45:26.649
residents at the top of the house which is making gold thread, wire.

0:45:26.649,0:45:30.829
And each month the merchant comes with a certain amount of gold and then at the

0:45:30.829,0:45:33.019
end of month comes and takes the wire back.

0:45:33.019,0:45:41.209
He's very pushy about exactly how much wire is being made in relationship to
the amount of gold that's being given

0:45:41.209,0:45:44.519
and these people were working day in and day out,

0:45:44.519,0:45:50.359
just making this wire in this system which is going to the jewelry trade.

0:45:50.359,0:45:54.640
These systems of production became very common in the 19th century,

0:45:54.640,0:45:56.669
but they never went away.

0:45:56.669,0:45:58.929
As I think I mentioned earlier,

0:45:58.929,0:46:03.329
one of the big problems, I think, Marx has here, is his tendency to think that

0:46:03.329,0:46:07.689
the factory system is actually going to drive everything else out.

0:46:07.689,0:46:08.849
But actually if you look at

0:46:08.849,0:46:11.959
the Japanese auto industry in the 1980s

0:46:11.959,0:46:16.430
a lot of it was actually erected on

0:46:16.430,0:46:22.989
an assembly line of components which were made, basically, in people's attics.

0:46:22.989,0:46:24.899
They had a whole domestic system

0:46:24.899,0:46:28.990
which in fact was one of the big strengths of the Japanese system because

0:46:28.990,0:46:31.590
the costs of any kind of downturn

0:46:31.590,0:46:36.489
wasn't visited on the car companies, it was visited on this mass of people

0:46:36.489,0:46:41.089
who were producing component parts and suddenly didn't have orders for
the component parts.

0:46:41.089,0:46:42.260
So actually,

0:46:42.260,0:46:48.589
that system worked extremely well for Japanese capital vis-a-vis, for example,

0:46:48.589,0:46:53.759
Detroit capital which was very much based on a more integrated system
with large-scale

0:46:53.759,0:46:55.669
component parts manufacturers,

0:46:55.669,0:47:00.019
where you really couldn't do these kinds of things.

0:47:00.019,0:47:04.900
So this domestic system that he's talking about here and these invisible threads

0:47:04.900,0:47:07.879
which are controlling this domestic system become

0:47:07.879,0:47:12.099
very important to look at in any industrial organization. If you go to

0:47:12.099,0:47:14.439
contemporary Hong Kong, you'll see it all over the place,

0:47:14.439,0:47:20.950
if you go to some areas of the Philippines, you'll see it all over the place.,

0:47:20.950,0:47:25.219
and this is a very different labour system. But Marx is talking about it here
,

0:47:25.219,0:47:29.069
becoming very different from the manufacturing system itself

0:47:29.069,0:47:33.119
as it used to be. It is a new kind of manufacturing structure

0:47:33.119,0:47:36.369
which Marx is seeing as going on around him

0:47:36.369,0:47:40.199
but which he doesn't actually accord great significance to
,

0:47:40.199,0:47:47.199
as being the centerpiece of what the world is going to become like.

0:47:49.289,0:47:54.969
He even talks here, about
the significance, on p.591,

0:47:54.969,0:48:00.149
the significance of decentralization.

0:48:04.269,0:48:09.119
He says: "In the so-called domestic industries this exploitation
is still more shameless than in

0:48:09.119,0:48:12.120
modern manufacture, because the workers' power of resistance

0:48:12.120,0:48:16.269
declines with their dispersal…"

0:48:16.269,0:48:18.739
When you read the account

0:48:18.739,0:48:22.299
in Zola's novel, it's very hard to imagine the
guy going out and getting together with

0:48:22.299,0:48:26.749
all the other people who are in the jewelry business and actually…,

0:48:26.749,0:48:28.729
you can't do that,

0:48:28.729,0:48:33.380
almost impossible to know, you would not know
where to find a lot of those people

0:48:33.380,0:48:41.489
So the dispersal becomes a significant aspect of it.

0:48:41.489,0:48:45.599
He then talks about, p.595, the modern domestic industry and the horrors

0:48:45.599,0:48:47.599
that go on there.

0:48:48.279,0:48:52.819
This is about the lace industry and Marx is again going to quote

0:48:52.819,0:48:56.349
masses and masses of information from

0:48:56.349,0:49:03.749
the factory inspectors and the Children's Employment Commission reports.

0:49:07.739,0:49:10.499
I'm not going to go into that,

0:49:10.499,0:49:18.619
go to page 602,

0:49:18.719,0:49:23.559
Marx comes back to the idea 'how did

0:49:23.559,0:49:27.259
the machine system arise out of the manufacturing?'

0:49:27.259,0:49:32.789
in the middle there he talks about this:
"The revolution in the social mode of production

0:49:32.789,0:49:36.729
which is the necessary product of the revolution in the means of production is
accomplished through

0:49:36.729,0:49:39.989
a variegated medley of transitional forms."

0:49:39.989,0:49:45.589
So he's very interested in these transitional forms,

0:49:45.589,0:49:51.939
then on p.603 he makes what is a very blanket statement,

0:49:51.939,0:49:54.049
ten lines down he says:

0:49:54.049,0:49:59.009
"The variety of these transitional forms does not, however,
conceal the tendency operating to

0:49:59.009,0:50:04.689
transform them into the factory system proper."

0:50:04.689,0:50:08.569
This is his argument, there's almost a teleological argument here, that the whole

0:50:08.569,0:50:12.879
system is going to become like the factory system,

0:50:12.879,0:50:17.869
and I think there's very good reasons to say that he was wrong about that.

0:50:20.559,0:50:27.219
Then there's some great stuff about sewing-machines and so on.

0:50:27.219,0:50:32.919
Then on p.604 he makes another very interesting point

0:50:32.919,0:50:35.329
when he says: "This industrial revolution,

0:50:35.329,0:50:40.339
which advances naturally and spontaneously, is also helped on artificially -

0:50:40.339,0:50:46.029
by the extension of the Factory Acts to all industries…"

0:50:46.029,0:50:51.189
Again this is a very interesting phenomena that
is worthwhile following up historically:

0:50:51.189,0:50:57.300
To what degree has regulation and the regulatory system today

0:50:57.300,0:51:01.929
actually contributed to the increasing centralization of capital

0:51:01.929,0:51:06.089
and increasing concentration of capital?

0:51:06.089,0:51:14.619
Because of a lot of those regulatory regimes become very hard for small producers to bear.

0:51:14.619,0:51:19.699
So at some point and Marx actually makes the point here:
At some point capitalists think

0:51:19.699,0:51:24.049
'this is a great idea, regulate it!

0:51:24.049,0:51:28.450
we can take on the regulation, they can't!

0:51:28.450,0:51:32.609
This gives us a competitive advantage through the state apparatus

0:51:32.609,0:51:38.269
we can drive them out of business, simply by imposing upon them

0:51:38.269,0:51:45.269
rules and regulations that they cannot possibly exceed to'.

0:51:47.759,0:51:51.329
So here too we see that

0:51:51.329,0:51:55.589
there's a sort of counter-intuitive result:
You would think that factory acts

0:51:55.589,0:52:01.609
would actually help workers, but actually what it does is it helps big capital

0:52:01.609,0:52:12.390
in particular, the factory acts help big capital, not necessary the workers.

0:52:14.159,0:52:21.469
As he says on p.607, very explicitly:

0:52:21.469,0:52:25.709
"But though the Factory Acts thus artificially ripen
the material elements necessary for

0:52:25.709,0:52:29.589
the conversion of the manufacturing system into the factory system,

0:52:29.589,0:52:34.129
yet at the same time, because they make it necessary to lay out a greater
amount of capital,

0:52:34.129,0:52:41.129
they hasten the decline of the small masters, and the concentration of capital."

0:52:44.109,0:52:46.689
Then he goes on to talk about

0:52:46.689,0:52:53.689
irregular habits of workers and so on.

0:52:57.589,0:53:02.209
On p.608 he has another interesting point:

0:53:02.209,0:53:09.939
A lot of demand for products is seasonal,

0:53:09.939,0:53:16.489
how does the system adjust to seasonal demand?

0:53:16.489,0:53:21.219
One of the answers is, of course,

0:53:21.219,0:53:29.579
to introduce a certain periodicity into the labour process itself,

0:53:29.579,0:53:39.209
but also he anticipates something which became very important in more recent times,

0:53:39.209,0:53:43.069
when he starts to talk about the way in which

0:53:43.069,0:53:46.859
the adaptability of the system

0:53:46.859,0:53:51.149
depends upon adequate communication.

0:53:51.149,0:53:52.739
On p.608 he talks about

0:53:52.739,0:53:58.319
"The habit of giving such orders becomes more frequent with
the extension of railways and telegraphs.

0:53:58.319,0:54:01.809
'The extension of the railway system throughout the country
has tended very much to encourage

0:54:01.809,0:54:03.579
giving short notice.

0:54:03.579,0:54:09.799
Purchasers now come up from Glasgow,
Manchester, and Edinburgh once every fortnight or so…"

0:54:09.799,0:54:14.659
so "instead of buying from stock as they used to do", they buy directly.

0:54:14.659,0:54:18.669
"Years ago we were always able to work in the
slack times so as to meet the demand of the next season,

0:54:18.669,0:54:25.669
but now no one can say beforehand what will be in demand then.' "

0:54:25.759,0:54:30.389
so you get overwork during the season, underwork at other times,
but also so you get

0:54:30.389,0:54:36.289
the emergence of an almost just-in-time system,

0:54:36.289,0:54:40.729
that capitalists, not wanting to keep great stocks,

0:54:40.729,0:54:43.579
start to use the new structures of communication
,

0:54:43.579,0:54:46.379
start to use the new structures of transportation,

0:54:46.379,0:54:51.209
to introduce something akin to what we now call just-in-time system.

0:54:51.209,0:54:54.929
That is, a kind of flow of commodities

0:54:54.929,0:54:58.809
which goes very fast when you need in the season and then slacks off,

0:54:58.809,0:55:04.230
so actually this again introduces more volatility into the labour-process

0:55:04.230,0:55:06.309
over a period of a year.

0:55:06.309,0:55:11.329
This problem of volatility of seasonal unemployment for example

0:55:11.329,0:55:16.209
in 19th century Paris was a really big problem for

0:55:16.209,0:55:21.140
the health and well-being for much of the population

0:55:21.140,0:55:27.369
and part of the year a large chunk of the working-class literally starved,

0:55:27.369,0:55:32.809
or stole or did something like that in order to live in order
to be well enough to go into

0:55:32.809,0:55:35.569
high-intensity labour when the season came around

0:55:35.569,0:55:39.309
and they were needed, in which case they would be working 80 hours a week,

0:55:39.309,0:55:42.840
so they'd be doing that for a short period of time

0:55:42.840,0:55:49.389
then six months of the year they'd be doing almost nothing.

0:55:51.719,0:55:55.249
I think we better actually stop here and then do 'The health and education clauses'
and then have

0:55:55.249,0:55:57.859
a general discussion on the chapter on machinery.

0:55:57.859,0:56:04.339
Because it really does warrant some serious debate.
So let's pause here,

0:56:04.339,0:56:10.989
and we'll race through section 9 and section 10 when we come back.

0:56:10.989,0:56:15.699
He starts off by sort of saying 'this is pretty paltry stuff,

0:56:15.699,0:56:20.809
anyway the capitalist can have all kinds of ways to go around it'.

0:56:20.809,0:56:27.389
Then p.614,

0:56:27.389,0:56:32.249
he says, well at least the factory acts acknowledge

0:56:32.249,0:56:35.140
that there is some role for education

0:56:35.140,0:56:38.589
and therefore it opens up the question

0:56:38.589,0:56:41.669
of what this education is about.

0:56:41.669,0:56:47.959
And he says on p.614, quoting Robert Owen, positively I think:

0:56:47.959,0:56:52.319
"As Robert Owen has shown us in detail, the germ of the education of the future

0:56:52.319,0:56:55.599
is present in the factory system;

0:56:55.599,0:57:00.569
this education will, in the case of every child over a given age,
combine productive labour

0:57:00.569,0:57:02.059
with instruction and gymnastics,

0:57:02.059,0:57:06.179
not only as one of the methods of
adding to the efficiency of production,

0:57:06.179,0:57:12.539
but as the only method of producing fully developed human beings."

0:57:12.539,0:57:17.019
Now, this is a pretty strong statement, of course, he's siding with

0:57:17.019,0:57:24.049
Robert Owen and the Owenist vision, about which we can discuss and debate.

0:57:24.049,0:57:29.349
He's siding with Owen saying 'we're not going to junk the factory system,

0:57:29.349,0:57:34.069
what we have to do is we have to actually transcend it in some way', but exactly how

0:57:34.069,0:57:36.579
is not clear from this.

0:57:36.579,0:57:42.719
He then contrasts that idea, that socialist idea

0:57:42.719,0:57:47.499
with the fact that the workers are living appendage of the machine

0:57:47.499,0:57:56.469
and that this is the appalling nature of the actual system

0:57:56.469,0:57:59.880
that we're concerned with.

0:57:59.880,0:58:09.729
Then follows a whole series of remarks which

0:58:09.729,0:58:13.929
add up, I think, to a suggestion that Marx does not view

0:58:13.929,0:58:19.369
the factory and the machine altogether in a negative light,

0:58:19.369,0:58:24.349
in fact it has positive elements and he's going to build upon that comment by Owen

0:58:24.349,0:58:30.019
in certain ways. So what are then the positive elements?

0:58:31.660,0:58:36.069
First, within the reorganization of the division of labour
he notes something which I think

0:58:36.069,0:58:40.549
is very important for us to note,

0:58:40.549,0:58:44.849
and this is on p.616 in the middle,

0:58:44.849,0:58:52.039
when he's contrasting old form labour-processes

0:58:52.039,0:58:54.919
which have been

0:58:54.919,0:58:59.169
transmitted over the generations, from one generation to another by word of mouth

0:58:59.169,0:59:03.019
and by example.

0:59:03.019,0:59:07.899
and he says "It is characteristic of this situation that, right down to the 18th century,

0:59:07.899,0:59:11.489
the different trades were called 'mysteries' (mysteres),

0:59:11.489,0:59:17.509
into whose secrets none but those initiated by their profession and
their practical experience could penetrate.

0:59:17.509,0:59:21.409
Large-scale industry tore aside the veil

0:59:21.409,0:59:26.479
that concealed from men their own social process of production and

0:59:26.479,0:59:30.930
turned the various spontaneously divided branches of production into riddles,

0:59:30.930,0:59:34.499
not only to outsiders but even to the initiated.

0:59:34.499,0:59:39.169
Its principle, which is to view each process of production in and for itself,

0:59:39.169,0:59:43.909
and to resolve it into its constituent elements without looking
first at the ability of the human hand

0:59:43.909,0:59:45.859
to perform the new processes,

0:59:45.859,0:59:51.269
brought into existence the whole of the modern science of technology.

0:59:51.269,0:59:55.819
The varied, apparently unconnected and petrified forms of the social production process

0:59:55.819,0:59:59.149
were now dissolved into conscious

0:59:59.149,1:00:04.409
and planned applications of natural science, divided up systematically in accordance with

1:00:04.409,1:00:08.109
the particular useful effect aimed at in each case.

1:00:08.109,1:00:12.809
Similarly, technology discovered the few grand fundamental forms of motion which,

1:00:12.809,1:00:15.229
despite all the diversity of the instruments used,

1:00:15.229,1:00:19.329
apply necessarily to every productive action of the human body,

1:00:19.329,1:00:24.059
just as the science of mechanics is not misled by the immense complication of modern machinery

1:00:24.059,1:00:30.299
into viewing this as anything other than the constant re-appearance
of the same simple mechanical processes.

1:00:30.299,1:00:35.610
Modern industry never views or treats the existing form
of a production process as the definitive one.

1:00:35.610,1:00:38.900
Its technical basis is therefore revolutionary,

1:00:38.900,1:00:44.039
whereas all earlier modes of production were essentially conservative.

1:00:44.039,1:00:48.729
By means of machinery, chemical processes and other methods, it is continually transforming

1:00:48.729,1:00:52.639
not only the technical basis of production but also the functions of the worker

1:00:52.639,1:00:56.649
and the social combinations of the labour process.

1:00:56.649,1:00:59.430
At the same time, it thereby also revolutionizes the division of labour within society,

1:00:59.430,1:01:04.189
and incessantly throws masses of capital and of
workers from one branch of production to another.

1:01:04.189,1:01:10.729
Thus large-scale industry, by its very nature, necessitates variation of labour,
fluidity of functions,

1:01:10.729,1:01:13.999
and mobility of the worker in all directions.

1:01:13.999,1:01:18.109
But on the other hand, in its capitalist form it reproduces the old division of labour

1:01:18.109,1:01:21.059
with its ossified particularities.

1:01:21.059,1:01:25.999
We have seen how this absolute contradiction does away with all repose, all fixity

1:01:25.999,1:01:30.509
and all security as far as the worker's life-situation is concerned;

1:01:30.509,1:01:37.259
how it constantly threatens, by taking away the instruments of labour,
to snatch from his hands the means of subsistence,

1:01:37.259,1:01:42.069
and, by suppressing his specialized function, to make him superfluous."

1:01:42.069,1:01:45.259
So this is about "the reckless squandering of labour-powers,

1:01:45.259,1:01:48.329
and in the devastating effects of social anarchy.

1:01:48.329,1:01:52.109
This is the negative side.

1:01:52.109,1:01:57.699
But if, at present, variation of labour imposes itself
after the manner of an overpowering natural law,

1:01:57.699,1:02:02.509
and with the blindly destructive action of a natural law that meets
with obstacles everywhere,

1:02:02.509,1:02:07.340
large-scale industry, through its very catastrophes,
makes the recognition of variation of labour

1:02:07.340,1:02:11.719
and hence of the fitness of the worker for the maximum number of different kinds of labour

1:02:11.719,1:02:14.799
into a question of life and death.

1:02:14.799,1:02:19.279
This possibility of varying labour must become a general law of social
production,

1:02:19.279,1:02:23.959
and the existing relations must be adapted to permit its realization in practice.

1:02:23.959,1:02:29.229
That monstrosity, the disposable working population held in reserve,
in misery, for the changing requirements

1:02:29.229,1:02:31.549
of capitalist exploitation,

1:02:31.549,1:02:35.259
must be replaced by the individual man who is absolutely available

1:02:35.259,1:02:37.629
for the different kinds of labour required of him;

1:02:37.629,1:02:42.209
the partially developed individual, who is merely the bearer of
one specialized social function,

1:02:42.209,1:02:45.219
must be replaced by the totally developed individual,

1:02:45.219,1:02:51.239
for whom the different social functions are different modes of activity
he takes up in turn."

1:02:51.239,1:02:54.029
Now, what do you make of this?

1:02:54.029,1:02:56.209
There's a negative and there's a positive.

1:02:56.209,1:03:01.719
You can say 'well you know, Marx is having his cake and eating it',

1:03:01.719,1:03:05.739
what's the relationship between this negative and this positive?

1:03:05.739,1:03:12.319
He's plainly seeing a lot going on inside of the industrial capitalist system,

1:03:12.319,1:03:14.500
which has immense potentialities

1:03:14.500,1:03:18.959
for human emancipation down the way,

1:03:18.959,1:03:21.890
and the big question is:

1:03:21.890,1:03:29.089
How do you think about mobilizing what he's seeing as positive?

1:03:29.089,1:03:32.880
The other way to think about it, is to say 'to what degree is he actually

1:03:32.880,1:03:40.039
pinning down a major contradiction within the history of capitalism?

1:03:40.039,1:03:42.479
Which is on the one hand,

1:03:42.479,1:03:46.389
you want workers who are kind of idiots,

1:03:46.389,1:03:50.089
who are just trained guerrillas, if you like,

1:03:50.089,1:03:52.929
can't think, won't think and don't think,

1:03:52.929,1:03:55.289
who are not active subjects.

1:03:55.289,1:03:56.819
At the same time,

1:03:56.819,1:04:03.119
the development of the capitalist system demands a labour force
which is pretty flexible,

1:04:03.119,1:04:06.719
which is at least partially educated,

1:04:06.719,1:04:11.969
which could actually respond to new instructions and new situations very rapidly,

1:04:11.969,1:04:18.849
which must therefore to some degree or other be able to think for himself.

1:04:18.849,1:04:21.979
So this is a dilemma actually around

1:04:21.979,1:04:28.979
the whole history of public education in capitalist social order.

1:04:29.029,1:04:33.979
And how that contradiction is resolved

1:04:33.979,1:04:40.459
has indeed been one of the big social stories,

1:04:40.459,1:04:45.049
of what capitalism has been about worldwide.

1:04:45.049,1:04:48.059
And you could see that right now,

1:04:48.059,1:04:53.130
in this country people are moaning on about the fact that we don't have
people who know enough math and science,

1:04:53.130,1:04:58.129
and my god, look at those Chinese, they got millions of them!

1:04:58.129,1:05:02.499
And how we're becoming uncompetitive. And so
part of the bourgeoisie and part of the capitalist class

1:05:02.499,1:05:06.149
is saying 'we have to improve

1:05:06.149,1:05:09.969
education and math and sciences and engineering because otherwise

1:05:09.969,1:05:10.910
we're messed'. Actually

1:05:10.910,1:05:15.179
they've done alright in the past, they've let the Russians train them

1:05:15.179,1:05:18.479
and with the collapse of the Soviet Union they all came here.

1:05:18.479,1:05:23.909
They let the Chinese train them, they've let the Indians train them,
and they just imported them,

1:05:23.909,1:05:27.979
and actually they trained them for free, that's the great thing,
the United States did not have to pay

1:05:27.979,1:05:33.019
the cost of education, let the Indians pay for it,
let the Chinese pay for it, let the Russians pay for it,

1:05:33.019,1:05:34.290
we won't to pay for it,

1:05:34.290,1:05:36.120
we'll just take the skilled labour,

1:05:36.120,1:05:40.399
very sophisticated skilled labour and we'll bring it in.
That's one of ways in which you can

1:05:40.399,1:05:42.549
resolve this particular dilemma.

1:05:42.549,1:05:46.019
But now people are beginning to get worried
because a lot of the Chinese whom they thought

1:05:46.019,1:05:49.339
were going to stay here have gone back to China, because they
get better jobs in China

1:05:49.339,1:05:53.889
than they get here. So what you're going to do with with that kind of problem.

1:05:53.889,1:05:59.059
So the point I think that Marx is making

1:05:59.059,1:06:03.429
is that there is a fundamental contradiction for capitalism

1:06:03.429,1:06:08.349
and that fundamental contradiction opens up some possibilities

1:06:08.349,1:06:14.619
for radical thought, radical ways of of working.

1:06:14.619,1:06:16.839
And it turns out that of course

1:06:16.839,1:06:20.249
that issue which is

1:06:20.249,1:06:25.239
at the heart of university education,

1:06:25.239,1:06:30.030
university education these days in this neo-liberal guise is not to

1:06:30.030,1:06:33.079
put you in courses like this.

1:06:33.079,1:06:37.359
It's meant to train you to be good thoughtful people around

1:06:37.359,1:06:47.920
engineering good neo-liberal kinds of theorists and an activists.

1:06:47.920,1:06:51.599
But at the same time the trouble is that when people get that
and start to think for themselves,

1:06:51.599,1:06:53.759
what are you gonna do about that?

1:06:53.759,1:06:56.200
Well, you can repress and do those kinds of things.

1:06:56.200,1:06:57.460
This is a dilemma

1:06:57.460,1:07:00.990
actually many societies have had, and I think
what Marx is pointing to is the dilemma,

1:07:00.990,1:07:04.849
and I think that's correct to look at it.

1:07:04.849,1:07:08.380
On the other hand I have a certain discomfort
with the way in which he's saying 'well

1:07:08.380,1:07:10.900
the factory system is okay,

1:07:10.900,1:07:12.549
out of that's going to come,

1:07:12.549,1:07:15.789
if we only have gymnastics and all those kinds of things,
everything will be okay.

1:07:15.789,1:07:18.080
That's what the Soviet Union

1:07:18.080,1:07:20.129
believed and actually

1:07:20.129,1:07:21.609
that's how the Japanese

1:07:21.609,1:07:26.149
workforce is organized too, calisthenics before you go in,

1:07:26.149,1:07:29.299
cheer-leading and all those kinds of things.

1:07:29.299,1:07:34.619
It's a bit bothersome what he's saying here but

1:07:34.619,1:07:36.829
you can see where he's coming from.

1:07:36.829,1:07:38.359
But also

1:07:38.359,1:07:42.009
this other Marxist principal you have,

1:07:42.009,1:07:45.049
is here kicking in with a vengeance, which is

1:07:45.049,1:07:47.989
that no society could set itself tasks

1:07:47.989,1:07:54.039
to which it does not already have at hand certain solutions.

1:07:54.039,1:08:00.189
So we just can't go to Mars and hope we will find solutions on Mars.
We have to find them

1:08:00.189,1:08:03.139
in our society in the here and now.

1:08:03.139,1:08:07.529
And so what Marx is willing to do here is to look inside the factory system

1:08:07.529,1:08:11.209
and to look for solutions inside of

1:08:11.209,1:08:14.369
the contemporary factory system

1:08:14.369,1:08:16.509
as he saw it at that time.

1:08:16.509,1:08:20.409
And I think he's inviting us to do the same sort of thing, and

1:08:20.409,1:08:26.020
how you think about that is a big political question

1:08:26.020,1:08:32.089
but this is where he is certainly at.

1:08:32.089,1:08:40.249
This leads on to an argument

1:08:40.249,1:08:46.600
on p.619, this is one of the rare places he does this in 'Capital',

1:08:46.600,1:08:51.839
he says "the Factory Act, that first and meagre concession wrung from capital,

1:08:51.839,1:08:55.679
is limited to combining elementary education with work in the factory,

1:08:55.679,1:08:57.759
there can be no doubt that,

1:08:57.759,1:09:01.790
with the inevitable conquest of political power by the working class,

1:09:01.790,1:09:04.500
technological education, both theoretical and practical,

1:09:04.500,1:09:07.790
will take its proper place in the schools of the workers.

1:09:07.790,1:09:13.119
There is also no doubt that those revolutionary ferments
whose goal is the abolition of the old division of labour

1:09:13.119,1:09:16.419
stand in diametrical contradiction with the capitalist form of production,

1:09:16.419,1:09:20.549
and the economic situation of the workers which corresponds to that form.

1:09:20.549,1:09:24.069
However, the development of the contradictions of a given historical form of production

1:09:24.069,1:09:25.929
is the only historical way

1:09:25.929,1:09:31.670
in which it can be dissolved and then reconstructed on a new basis."

1:09:31.670,1:09:35.420
In other words, these are the contradictions with which you have to work if

1:09:35.420,1:09:39.709
you want to construct an alternative kind of society.

1:09:39.709,1:09:45.639
There's not much in 'Capital' which tells you about Marx' theory of revolution,

1:09:45.639,1:09:50.309
this is a brief kinda synopsis.

1:09:50.309,1:09:56.479
Then he continues in this vain on the next page, 620.

1:09:56.479,1:09:59.750
when he starts to talk about

1:09:59.750,1:10:06.020
the economic foundation of the family,

1:10:06.020,1:10:09.799
and he says at the top that "large-scale industry

1:10:09.799,1:10:14.960
in overturning the economic foundation of the old family system,
and the family labour corresponding to it,

1:10:14.960,1:10:19.239
had also dissolved the old family relationships."

1:10:19.239,1:10:24.329
Then he goes on to talk about what's happening to parents

1:10:24.329,1:10:31.510
and what transformed parental power into its misuse,
which is talked about earlier

1:10:31.510,1:10:34.619
in that family-labour stuff.

1:10:34.619,1:10:39.520
Then he goes on to say: "However terrible and disgusting the dissolution of the old family

1:10:39.520,1:10:42.369
ties within the capitalist system may appear,

1:10:42.369,1:10:47.989
large-scale industry, by assigning an important part in socially organized processes of production,

1:10:47.989,1:10:49.880
outside the sphere of the domestic economy,

1:10:49.880,1:10:53.079
to women, young persons and children of both sexes,

1:10:53.079,1:10:57.800
does nevertheless create a new economic foundation for a higher form of the family

1:10:57.800,1:11:00.959
and of relations between the sexes."

1:11:00.959,1:11:07.179
A negatively is suddenly converted into a positive,

1:11:07.179,1:11:11.019
and he then says further on in that paragraph:
"It is also obvious that the fact that

1:11:11.019,1:11:15.199
the collective working group is composed of individuals of both sexes and all ages

1:11:15.199,1:11:19.519
must under the appropriate conditions turn into a source of humane development,

1:11:19.519,1:11:24.560
although in its spontaneously developed, brutal, capitalist form,
the system works in the opposite direction,

1:11:24.560,1:11:31.560
and becomes a pestiferous source of corruption and slavery…"

1:11:37.340,1:11:42.679
In these sections what we're getting is

1:11:42.679,1:11:45.719
an account of the misery of the system,

1:11:45.719,1:11:51.579
but also something about what Marx sees as the possibilities within it.

1:11:51.579,1:11:56.119
Then what follows up is a real account of the misery of the system which is mainly about

1:11:56.119,1:12:02.279
what is right down the mines, and how that all works and so on,

1:12:02.279,1:12:06.279
I'm not going to go over that.

1:12:11.869,1:12:20.869
At the end of this section, on page 635:

1:12:21.839,1:12:25.449
"If the general extension of

1:12:25.449,1:12:29.079
factory legislation to all trades for
the purpose of protecting the working class both

1:12:29.079,1:12:31.559
in mind and body has become inevitable,

1:12:31.559,1:12:35.269
on the other hand, as we have already
pointed out, that extension hastens on

1:12:35.269,1:12:39.869
the general conversion of numerous isolated small industries into
a few combined industries

1:12:39.869,1:12:42.460
carried on upon a large scale;

1:12:42.460,1:12:45.729
it therefore accelerates the concentration of capital

1:12:45.729,1:12:49.400
and the exclusive predominance of the factory system."

1:12:49.400,1:12:51.550
Then he talks about

1:12:51.550,1:12:55.789
destroying the ancient and transitional forms,

1:12:55.789,1:13:02.789
"But by doing this it also generalizes the direct struggle against its rule.

1:13:03.219,1:13:07.960
While in each individual workshop it enforces uniformity, regularity, order and economy,

1:13:07.960,1:13:11.399
the result of the immense impetus given to technical improvement

1:13:11.399,1:13:14.240
by the limitation and regulation of the working day

1:13:14.240,1:13:21.789
is to increase the anarchy and the proneness to catastrophe
of capitalist production as a whole…"

1:13:21.789,1:13:27.329
Bottom of the page: "By maturing the material conditions and
the social combination of the process of production,

1:13:27.329,1:13:32.329
it matures the contradictions and antagonisms of the capitalist form of that process,

1:13:32.329,1:13:34.280
and thereby ripens

1:13:34.280,1:13:38.110
both the elements for forming a new society and the forces tending

1:13:38.110,1:13:45.710
towards the overthrow of the old one."

1:13:45.710,1:13:49.559
Again he's emphasizing the contradictory character of this,

1:13:49.559,1:13:56.100
its instability, its volatility, its anarchy, its awfulness,
but at the same time

1:13:56.100,1:13:58.699
talking about the ways in which

1:13:58.699,1:14:03.899
we might look for revolutionary transformation out of that system,

1:14:03.899,1:14:10.320
not by going outside of it, but by going inside of it to see what is going on there.

1:14:10.320,1:14:13.579
Thinking about things like automation and so on.

1:14:13.579,1:14:15.530
You could see, in some ways,

1:14:15.530,1:14:22.219
reading these passages where a lot of philosophy of the Soviet Union came from.

1:14:22.219,1:14:23.760
That is,

1:14:23.760,1:14:29.329
what you're trying to do is not undo the factory system,

1:14:29.329,1:14:34.620
you try to find those elements within it which are potentially liberatory,

1:14:34.620,1:14:42.030
so the Soviets concentrated immensely on things like automation, robotization, etc.

1:14:43.030,1:14:50.669
And they sought paths of technological change down in that direction.

1:14:50.669,1:14:58.309
They also sought to instantiate the factory system

1:14:58.309,1:15:01.660
and education alongside of it,

1:15:01.660,1:15:06.189
a highly developed educational system alongside of it, which was technical education

1:15:06.189,1:15:11.510
which explains why it is that if you go to certain (…)

1:15:11.510,1:15:18.969
I remark this one time went I went the Hubble Space Telescope building at Johns Hopkins,

1:15:18.969,1:15:28.570
which is where all of the mathematical whizzes are on astronomy, cosmology
and all the rest of it,

1:15:28.570,1:15:35.150
and you go sit down at the table there and the lingua franca in the dining room is Russian.

1:15:35.150,1:15:41.809
Hardly anybody speaks English in the place, it's Russians in exile
who have been brought over

1:15:41.809,1:15:47.799
and have the skills and the ability to do this stuff,

1:15:47.799,1:15:52.790
which a lot of us don't have.

1:15:52.790,1:15:55.839
Let's just look quickly at the last

1:15:55.839,1:15:58.960
piece, which is "large-scale industry and agriculture"

1:15:58.960,1:16:03.239
Marx is interested here in the relationship between the industrial system

1:16:03.239,1:16:08.989
and the relation to nature, in effect, through agriculture.

1:16:11.580,1:16:17.099
Again, he has some real possibilities here, he says

1:16:17.099,1:16:23.030
on p.637, on the one hand "technological application of science

1:16:23.030,1:16:28.379
replaces the previous highly irrational and slothful traditional way of working."

1:16:28.379,1:16:33.349
It produces all these revolutions "But at the same time it creates
the material conditions for a new and

1:16:33.349,1:16:35.580
higher synthesis,

1:16:35.580,1:16:38.640
a union of agriculture and industry on the basis of the forms

1:16:38.640,1:16:42.659
that have developed during the period of their antagonistic isolation."

1:16:42.659,1:16:44.249
On the other hand

1:16:44.249,1:16:50.969
"it concentrates the historical motive power of society; it disturbs
the metabolic interaction between man and the earth,

1:16:50.969,1:16:55.940
i.e. it prevents the return to the soil of its constituent elements consumed
by man in the form of food and clothing;

1:16:55.940,1:16:58.830
hence it hinders the operation of the eternal natural condition for

1:16:58.830,1:17:01.989
the lasting fertility of the soil."

1:17:01.989,1:17:05.380
He goes on in next page, it transforms the metabolism.

1:17:08.570,1:17:10.370
And he says

1:17:10.370,1:17:13.230
right at the end: "Capitalist production, therefore,

1:17:13.230,1:17:17.140
only develops the techniques and the degree of combination of the social process of production

1:17:17.140,1:17:20.680
by simultaneously undermining the original sources of all wealth

1:17:20.680,1:17:23.699
- the soil and the worker." That is,

1:17:23.699,1:17:29.599
the dynamic of capitalism moves towards the degradation
of the worker and the degradation of the environment,

1:17:29.599,1:17:32.469
these two things go hand-in-hand.

1:17:32.469,1:17:34.579
This is a proposition, by the way,

1:17:34.579,1:17:39.829
that was taken up by a very forcefully by Karl Polanyi in 'The Great Transformation',

1:17:39.829,1:17:43.510
so if you ever get to read that book, you'll find Polanyi basically

1:17:43.510,1:17:47.389
saying: 'the capitalist system (…) '

1:17:47.389,1:17:51.719
He wrote it in 1944 so he never cited Marx, but he's obviously quoting Marx,

1:17:51.719,1:17:55.820
in a lot of this, when he talks about the way in which capitalists,

1:17:55.820,1:17:58.309
left to their own devices, unregulated

1:17:58.309,1:18:04.939
is likely to generate depletion of the labour-supply and destruction of the soil.

1:18:04.939,1:18:09.400
Okay, so I've whizzed through this chapter

1:18:09.400,1:18:12.550
on machinery and large-scale industry, I'd like now to reflect on it and

1:18:12.550,1:18:16.419
get some of your thoughts about it.

1:18:16.419,1:18:25.629
It's a complicated chapter for the reasons I suggested which is

1:18:25.629,1:18:30.439
that the dynamics are not always clear as to which way Marx is going,

1:18:30.439,1:18:31.789
in terms of

1:18:31.789,1:18:35.499
how do we understand the machine and how do we understand the factory.

1:18:35.499,1:18:39.489
Is it positive and negative? Is it positive? Is it negative? and

1:18:39.489,1:18:41.239
what are we to attribute to social relations and what are we

1:18:41.239,1:18:43.059
to attribute to technology?

1:18:43.059,1:18:48.240
There's a dialogue going on on the technology—social relations front
and the relation to nature front

1:18:48.240,1:18:49.650
as well at the end here.

1:18:49.650,1:18:54.649
The dialogue there,

1:18:54.649,1:18:58.709
which I think has all kinds of problematics in it,
unless you look at it also from the standpoint

1:18:58.709,1:19:02.060
of what the revolutionary possibilities are

1:19:02.060,1:19:06.689
inside of this distinctively capitalistic system, because here he's dealing with

1:19:06.689,1:19:11.409
the capitalistic mode of production in it's full-fledged form

1:19:11.409,1:19:16.849
and in all of its splendor as it were, and all of its horrors.

1:19:16.849,1:19:18.239
What are we going to

1:19:18.239,1:19:20.659
make about that, how we're going to utilize that,

1:19:20.659,1:19:25.369
as part of a transitional kind of process to a socialist society becomes part

1:19:25.369,1:19:27.369
of the question that he's involved in,

1:19:27.369,1:19:30.889
which I think
accounts for the way in which he starts to set up these

1:19:30.889,1:19:37.800
negative and positive arguments towards the end of the chapter.

1:19:37.800,1:19:40.650
I'm going to push ahead here,

1:19:40.650,1:19:45.330
I've suggested you read the chapter on absolutely and relative surplus-value,

1:19:45.330,1:19:52.699
I would do that, we'll do a brief commentary on that next time.

1:19:52.699,1:19:57.849
I'm not going to really talk about chapters 17 and 18,

1:19:57.849,1:20:02.699
all Marx does there is to consolidate his formula,

1:20:02.699,1:20:06.290
I think this is a point where he's been seems to be nervous
about the fact that people haven't

1:20:06.290,1:20:09.750
quite got his point, so he sort of repeats it all,

1:20:09.750,1:20:12.939
in slightly different ways,

1:20:12.939,1:20:17.969
and so they're not they're not terribly informative.

1:20:17.969,1:20:20.920
The whole section on wages,

1:20:20.920,1:20:25.139
again I'm not going to talk about them,

1:20:25.139,1:20:30.209
but just to briefly mention,

1:20:32.239,1:20:37.119
It's really only about the wages system, and it's fairly self-evident and obvious,

1:20:37.119,1:20:45.419
and we'll talk about it very briefly. But I really want to do, next time, chapters 23 and 24.

1:20:45.419,1:20:56.550
And I want you to pay particular attention to the introductory page-and-a-half
when he introduces part seven.

1:20:56.550,1:21:00.060
Very important thing, but I want to take chapters 22,

1:21:00.060,1:21:03.840
read the other stuff, we'll talk very briefly about it,

1:21:03.840,1:21:07.289
But you should be able to go through the rest of that stuff fairly easily.

1:21:07.289,1:21:10.629
But we start to get into some very interesting, very important stuff

1:21:10.629,1:21:16.630
in chapters 23 and 24, so I want to concentrate on 23 and 24 next time.

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